So, as someone who owns a website, what expectations should you
have regarding SEO? Why should you invest in it if results aren't
guaranteed?

The SEO Process

Search Engine Optimization used to mainly focus on keyword
targeting and link building. While those are still factors, the SEO
process has expanded to include, among a host of other factors,
content building, user experience, page speed and accessibility,
mobile friendliness, analysis of competition, crawlability, social
media marketing, etc. There are literally hundreds of
factors that search engines examine to determine the
rankings for websites. So what does that mean for you? It means
that if you don't have someone dedicated to deciphering all the
factors and constantly working on improving your site to make sure
each factor is improved as much as possible, you're going to fall
behind. The good news is, it is possible to be a player in the
rankings game if you use a company that isn't working towards the
short term goal of ranking on the first page. The company you
choose for SEO work needs to be aware of the factors, and have a
process for implementing change so that you will see results in
time. So what is this process?

Alt Media Studios contracts with website owners for SEO to
improve rank, but also to make sure their site stays up to date.
The process can be broken down like this:

Once the SEO contract is agreed upon, the SEO analyst will do a
site audit. This involves keyword research to see what phrases are
worth going after in the search engines to get the website as much
visibility as possible for keywords in the related industry. It
also requires a lot of analysis for how best to reach customers
with content, user experience while on the website, and social
media. This is an ongoing process that never stops as long as the
contract is in place. The analyst will continue to audit the site
to see what improvements can be made and how best to attract
customers.

As the site audit progresses, the SEO analyst has to determine
what investments are possible and which are most likely to give the
website owner a return on investment. For instance, mobile friendly
sites are now becoming more and more important to Google, so it is
probably worth it to try to convince the website owner to do a
redesign for a responsive site if they don't
already have one.

The digital marketing analyst at Alt Media
Studios will work with the customer to get projects approved.
This includes adding new content to the website, improving the
text, improving the user experience, and adding information to
social media pages.

Working on off site signals so that the website gets visibility
to as many people as possible. Some of this work is done by the
digital marketing analyst, but website owners can do
themselves a favor by really focusing on public relations and
marketing. For instance, the analyst will do their best to keep
social media pages up to date, but if they have nothing to post on
behalf of the website owner, a lot of times, they are left to their
own devices. It is MUCH BETTER when the website owner has news
updates, pictures, events, specials/coupons, and content from their
day to day business dealings to post about than say, an
inspirational quote posted just for the sake of having something on
the page. Too many site owners fall into the trap of giving all
authority over to the analyst without keeping in contact about what
is going on with the business.

Wait and see the results of months of work. This is the most
frustrating part about SEO and everyone knows it. The biggest
factor for SEO is TIME!!! Results don't happen overnight, and
sometimes, major results aren't seen for months or years. This can
be extremely discouraging to the analyst and the website owner but
it is reality.

SEO Expectations

So now that you know the process, realize that each step is
contingent on the previous one. The digital marketing analysts
at Alt Media Studios won't guarantee page rankings, but they
will audit your site, determine what needs to be fixed, prioritize
fixes, decide what investments need to be made by the website
owner, work on off site engagement, and get results OVER TIME. They
also won't promise how much time the results take because it is
impossible to know for sure. So what should you
take away from this information?

Page rank
results are never guaranteed. Our analysts always
strive for first page rank, but it is not the end all be all of
SEO. There are many other ways to drive traffic to your site and
create conversions so SEO performance cannot be judged solely on
page rank.

SEO takes
time and a lot of behind the scenes work that the
website owner will never physically see.

YOU WILL GET
RESULTS, but it is up to you to decide how long and
how much you're willing to spend on getting them.

So why invest in SEO? Because even small improvements made over
a short time, can have an impact on creating customers.